Hi Diane,
Thank you for your comment.
Indeology is not ignored, it is integrated in my analysis. I focused on the
sum total of the relations of production which structures society and
constitutes its real foundation. Therefore, personality is grounded in the
social relations or in other words it is an ensemble of social relations.
From a Marxist point of view (Marx himself) human individuals are both the
forces and relations of production. They are not just a product of the
social base like the superstructures (ideologies, ideas, law, etc.) but are
part of the social base. In this sense, human individuals were to be
understood as active producers of their environment. In other words, human
individuals are not produced by the social base neither are they produced
as superstructure because they are an integral part of both base and
superstructure. In this respect, Vygotsky pointed out that "The nature of
man's education, therefore, is wholly determined by the social environment
in which he grows and develops. But this environment does not always affect
man directly and straightforwardly, but also indirectly, through his
ideology. By ideology, we will understand all the social stimuli that have
been established in the course of historical development and have become
hardened in the form of legal statutes, moral precepts, artistic tastes,
and so on. These standards are permeated through and through with the class
structure of society that generated them and serve as the class
organization of production. They are responsible for all human behavior,
and in this sense we are justified in speaking of man's class behavior."
Educational Pyschology.
In the preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
(1859), Marx gives an integral formulation of the fundamental principles of
materialism as applied to human society and its history, in the following
words: "In the social production of their life, men enter into definite
relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations
of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their
material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production
constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on
which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond
definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material
life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in
general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being,
but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their
consciousness.
At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of
society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or —
what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property
relations within which they have been at work hitherto". This passage
outlines a fundamental thesis which can be summarized as follow: every
society is organized hierarchially in the following order: 1) forces of
production, 2) relations of production, or the real foundation of society,
3) the legal and political superstructure, and the 4) forms of social
consciousness. In Vygotsky's view "We cannot master the truth about
personality and personality itself so long as mankind has not master the
truth about society and sociey itself".
Mohamed Elhammoumi
----------
> From: Diane Hodges <dhodges@ceo.cudenver.edu>
> To: elham@rockymountnc.com
> Cc: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Personality is an ensemble of social relations
> Date: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 7:56 AM
>
> well WOW! what a summary! thanks to you, very much, for clarifying what
> has seem rather
> muddled and misdirected at times.
>
> my personal confusion is the Marxist conception of 'ideology' and the
ways
> this is
> abandoned by 'personality' theory or psychology - surely social relations
> are ideologically
> constructed by the ways they are 'social' relations -
> why has ideology been removed from these analyses?
> diane
>
> **********************************************************************
> :point where everything listens.
> and i slow down, learning how to
> enter - implicate and unspoken (still) heart-of-the-world.
>
> (Daphne Marlatt, "Coming to you")
> ***********************************************************************
>
> diane celia hodges
>
> university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
> instruction
> ==================== ==================== =======================
> university of colorado, denver, school of education
>
> Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu
>
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